I think I saw your car at cypress cars and coffee today, unless there’s another one with the exact same shift ****, lol. Was waiting around for the driver, but didn’t get a chance to meet.

 

Yep that was me! Too bad I missed you, would have been fun to meet. Your Montego is nice!

 

A couple pics from the show this weekend, shout out to @Vladee for bringing out his super clean Montego. 189k miles but super clean and very nicely modded.

I like the second pic because it shows all three of the OEM spoiler styles and all three of the badges that were used throughout the FD production run.

 

Glad to finally meet you. Pretty cool to see one that's almost all original.

 

omg I'm right outside Fairfield and had no idea this was going on. ugh.

 

It's the first Saturday of every month : )

 

Who's the guy with the white RHD? Looks like they just picked it up and its a 95-97

 

Did a grocery run in the FD today, I decided to swap back to the stock shift **** to switch things up. It's actually hard to beat the feel of the stock ****, IMO.

Also hit 22222 miles. Still running strong.

I'm tempted to get some softer Koni Yellows to replace the R1 shocks. Oddly enough I have noticed that I seem to really enjoy the first 20 minutes or so of a drive, but any longer than that and I'm glad to get out. And I think the reason is the punishing ride quality of the R1 kit. It's really quite stiff for a street driven car, the early magazine reviews that complained about it were not exaggerating.

 

I think you'll be happy with the Koni yellow dampers and tein s-tech springs. Aarkaah had that combination on his old '93 VR base and I thought it rode quite well. (I think it might actually be over in your neck of the woods these days!) I haven't yet experienced stock R1 damping so I can't offer a comparison there.

I echo your sentiment regarding the OE shift ****, though I have grown to prefer them to be lighter in weight.

 

I didn't think my R1 was that bad honestly.......but I was much younger when I had it and my FC at that time also had really stiff ground control Coilovers so the FD was a luxury ride compared to the FC.

 

Slightly off topic, but here in the DFW area, the thing that actually keeps me from enjoying my car isn't the ride comfort but rather the absolutely insane amounts of traffic and perpetual construction projects. It seems like the only time frame within which I can even remotely enjoy driving it are between 6am-9am on a weekend or after 10pm at night.

It's a big part of the reason I've been prepping my car for more serious track work. At least out there I can actually enjoy it.

 

My wife and I were just talking about this the other day. Its hard to get out and just enjoy "driving" with how busy everything is now. It used to be at 2am, the highways and streets were super quiet. Now there is traffic 24/7. Even on the back roads that used to be fun to drive, you run into lots of traffic. Last week we spent 2 hours and 45 minutes to get to a location that used to take us just over an hour and there were no major accidents, it was just "Orlando Traffic" to get to a car show.

 

I was in the same boat as you, the stock R1 suspension is a bit harsh for old guys like me so I went with Ohlins FPSpec Long Stroke GT Lites, only a few miles on them so far but a nice modernization upgrade with both comfort and performance in mind.

 

I came to a similar conclusion as you all, @cloud9 and @boostin13b . It probably isn't as near as extreme over here but it does (did) restrict me to driving either very early in the morning or late at night on weekends if I actually wanted to go drive the thing and have (safe) fun and enjoyment. At the time I was struggling with the "do I leave it alone, or do I do what I really want?" dichotomy and determined that if I subscribed to the latter, I'd probably get more enjoyment and use out of it than I otherwise would have if I had left it as is and continued the same use case.

 

Thinking about selling, and reinstalled the stock steering wheel. I have now been through two steering wheels and three shift *****, and I prefer the stock setup to all of them. Mazda got it right!



I feel like I have more control versus the 350 mm MOMO, and it's actually easier to heel-toe with the stock wheel due to the spacing from the hub. The leather is nicer (softer), and the rim has less padding, so you get better road feel. It feels good, actually a significant difference from the MOMO. More control, less steering effort.